Books: The First Novelists: Skilled, Satirical, Searching

Question: What do a child-guidance counselor, a jazz pianist, a BBC
newscaster, a Peruvian living in Paris, a 26-year-old beauty from North
Carolina and a 63-year-old real estate millionaire from Manhattan have
in common? Answer: All are aspiring authors who have swelled one of
the longest and strongest lists of first novels ever published in a
single season.

Traditionally, the first novelist bursts upon the literary scene like a
day-old volcanoexploding platitudes, scattering an unbreathable ash
of adjectives, devouring cash advances like sacrificial maidens. The
noisy thing may turn out to be a...